Martha Plimpton Finds Making Bread Very Therapeutic

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Actress and activist Martha Plimpton shares how she's been spending her time in quarantine, which includes learning how to make bread like the rest of us.

Video Transcript

- How are you holding up in your quarantine, lockdown? What are you doing to stay sane?

MARTHA PLIMPTON: I'm gardening, luckily. And that's why I've got my gardening hat on. And then I ran inside to do this. And I realized I have really bad, sweaty hat hair. So I decided to keep it on. But I'm gardening, which is really fortunate that I have my outdoor space. And I got some roses today I'm going to plant after we talk.

And I've got my raised beds. Things are starting to sprout. So that's at least giving me a sort of a sense of the passage of time so the days aren't completely bleeding into one another.

- Are you reading anything? Are you binge watching anything or watching anything that's inspiring?

MARTHA PLIMPTON: I am. I am. I'm reading this really cool book called "Sunshine" by this guy Glenn David Gold. And it's a really cool sort of fantastical novel about Charlie Chaplin and Hollywood.

- Oh, cool.

MARTHA PLIMPTON: Yeah, it's really fun. It's a really great sort of beautifully written diversion from daily life. But other than that, I'm gardening, mostly. I've started learning how to bake bread, like everybody else in the world.

- I can't tell if that's because we all have time, or if we're all just actually worried about like food and the apocalypse, and we're like--

MARTHA PLIMPTON: No, I mean, they sort of merge together, in a way. I would say I was telling someone the other day, I think there's something about the sort of patience that it requires, and the methodical, sort-of step by step, and it has to be very precise, that it's very sort of calming, I think, also.

So it's like, you're nourishing yourself. You're providing the people in your cave nourishment and sustenance. But also, you're sort of participating in this sort of natural, specific process, that takes time. And you have to be patient and breathe through it. So I think that maybe it's sort of a therapeutic thing for people, too. It certainly is for me.

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